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Monday, October 13, 2008

McCain Couldn't Get Care on His Plan

By Anne Kass
Former Judge
          McCain Couldn't Get Care On His Plan
        The "McCain Has Better Prescription for Health Care" column by economists Micha Gisser and Kenneth M. Brown was simply nonsensical.
        For example, if three-time melanoma patient John McCain were given $2,500 a year to purchase health insurance for himself — which, as Gisser and Brown noted, would be "risk-adjusted" under McCain's plan — he would likely be able to purchase at most three months of coverage, and that only with sky-high deductibles and co-pays.
        One reason McCain's health-care proposal is so wrong-headed is that he, himself, is the beneficiary of a cushy health-care plan which Congress has voted for itself and paid for with public money.
        Congress' plan, I assume, does not arbitrarily deny coverage for medical procedures in order to maximize the profits of the insurance company — a common practice among private insurers, and one not in keeping with providing health care to everyone, which should be the goal of any health-care system.
        Gisser and Brown pull out of thin air the claim that if people were allowed to purchase health insurance across state lines, as McCain proposes, "the spiraling cost of health care will level out." The authors offer not even one example of the cost of a necessity such as health care leveling out, or even being affected, by instigating across-state-lines purchases. I dare say no such example exists.
        Then there is the notion that individuals could effectively shop for their own health insurance plans. Large corporations have whole departments dedicated to researching what different insurance policies cover and exclude and at what price.
        But then what would you expect from out-of-touch John McCain and out-of-touch economists Gisser and Brown, all of whom are so disconnected from reality as to continue to sing the praises of free markets in the face of the economic disaster we are currently experiencing courtesy of free markets.
        The real problem with the American health-care system is that it has become an industry designed primarily to profit the corporations who provide the "health-care" product. Some aspects of life are more important than profit — family, community and education, for example. Other aspects of life are actually necessities, health care being among them, and when it comes to necessities, profit has no place in the picture at all. Health care should be treated as a public service, not a for-profit business.
        If, as stated by Gisser and Brown, Obama's plan eventually would crowd out private insurance companies from the health-care market, that result can't happen soon enough. We the people need health care, not health insurance.